Karnataka Budget 2008-2009

says ... Collection of Forest Development Tax from licensees mining in forest areas. this has got to be interesting. hope this means large tracts of chamarajanagara and the hills and the malnad are out. hope this does not mean large scale manipulation and fudging of records and de-classification of forest lands. hmm... kannada movies get tax exemption. jayamala and ilk have got to be happy. and hopefully this is seen as free rope to expand range and rediscover the kanagal. hope this is not the rope that is long enough for KFI to hang itself with. hopefully this doesnot mean free run for useless morons like ravichandran and s. narayan. kasarvalli et all have been raising voices against distribution problems. hopefully this will begin to address that.

hmm thats interesting. you are saying BDA do the planning, where the roads go, where the pipes(water,sewage) go, where the parks go, where the schools go, community centers go, and let private-walas build the houses. or are you saying, private-walas go all the way? direct from farmer/landowner/villager. well, that way the mess called as whitefield will repeat no?

very good point syed. you are absolutely right. somehow the issue of farmer's compensation only crops up wrt industrial and infrastructural projects, it never surfaces when the issue is layouts. i guess layouts are seen as benefitting people, while industries and infrastructural projects are seen as benefitting businessmen, contractors and politicians. even though industries generate jobs for people and businessmen, contractors and politicians benefit even in cutting layouts. lot of duplicity in this issue. now back to these new BDA layouts, they have announced some new compensation schemes. apart from money, the landlosers are supposed to get multiple sites in the newly formed layouts. obviously, they cannot live in all the given sites. and one is meant to be sold at market price. (i cannot find references to news articles now to back this.) the basic issue is this. there are two types of people who are displaced by these acquisitions: 1) landowning villagers and, 2) landless villagers. when the govt intervens, a lot monetary value is added to the land itself. Without this intervention,it may not have that much value. once govt intervenes by either declassifying or building road or layout, value of that land shoots up. but for many people land means more than its trade-in value, especially for those with small holdings. For such people, this type of compensation, where the landlosers are also part of the gains atleast for a few years, is probably more humane. but then again, just like not all bangaloreans are software engineers, not all villagers are landowning farmers. a village has all sorts of people. so what happens to those people, who dont own lands, when the entire village is acquired? there are many landowners who have happily sold their acre or two for a pretty paisa, but what happens to those who depended on that guy holding an acre for their meals? that is one aspect. lets say land has been acquired through a fair deal. what after that? for it to develop as a well planned coherent unit, somebody has to lay the roads and the pipes. a dwelling zone is more than the buildings and houses built on it right? somebody has to plan what goes where. without planning, we will only spread the mess around. there is a need for area wide planning. how can that happen without a public body intervening? forget roads and drains, how many private developers have developed water tight rain water harvesting systems in buildings which pride themselmes of the latest in italian bathroom fixtures? we all know the state of ground water thanks to laissez faire wrt to drilling borewells. how many public parks in that area? or do borewell water swimming pools count as one? how much land is left around whitefield for schools where tens of thousands of apartments have cropped up, most of which are owned by folks who prolly are have young families or are about to start one? i am not saying govt is a magical angel capable of doing all this. atleast with govt, there is potential and a hope, even if remote.

i dunno... i cant read numbers. can you make sense of this? http://www.kar.nic.in/fin... i swear to god, i was thinking about it. one of the things that flashed in my mind was can some of the officials be retooled to work in education sector?

HOUSING BOARD TO LAUNCH JOINT VENTURES WITH PVT. BUILDERS Star of Mysore, August 23, 2008. The Karnataka Housing Board (KHB) will soon launch housing projects under joint venture. This was disclosed by the Board Chairman and former Minister G.T. Devegowda at an interaction with mediapersons at Pathrakarthara Bhavan here this morning. He said that the Board had signed MoUs with nine private builders in the State for building houses, apartments and forming sites, incorporating appropriate features as per guidelines and policies. Of the nine projects, two will be launched in Mysore. M/s. Subramanya Constructions and Development Co. Ltd., Bangalore, will take up construction of houses, apartments and sites on 187 acres of land in Kergalli and with M/s. Central Resorts and Plantation (P) Ltd., Mysore will take up similar project on 150 acres of land in Kesare. Devegowda also said that the Board was planning to acquire 1,000 hectares of land around Mysore city and district. Once the land is acquired, the Board would provide basic infrastructure like water, drainage, electricity etc. Land will be purchased from the farmers on a 40:60 ratio, which means that 40 per cent of the developed land would be allotted to the land losers and the remaining 60 per cent of land would be utilised for the Board's projects, he added. Devegowda claimed that the offer had attracted farmers who are coming forward to allow acquisition of their lands. Waiting list Currently there are 3,08,000 applicants in the State in the waiting list of Board for sites and houses, out of which 77,000 are for houses and 2,31,000 are for sites, he said. He assured that 50 per cent of the waiting list would be cleared within one year. Devegowda disclosed that out of the 100 housing projects sanctioned by the Government, 67 had already been executed at a cost of Rs. 671.80 crore. A total of 4,890 houses and 17,357 sites had been developed under these projects. About 15 projects at a cost of Rs. 200 crore were nearing completion. A total of 852 houses and 5,502 sites are being developed under these projects, he said. MDJA President K. Shivakumar, Vice-President T.V. Rajeshwar, General Secretary Prabhurajan and City BJP President B.P. Manjunath were present at the interaction.